The Meant to Be Collection

by Claire Highton-Stevenson

  “I know how sexy I feel when you kiss me like that.” Her breathy reply came naturally, her heart rate quickened, and her body reacted to the touch of her lover’s fingers instantly.

  “Yeah? I want you to always feel sexy.”

  “Then you had better keep kissing me then, hadn’t you?” Nicole smiled into the kiss and enjoyed the sensations she was feeling throughout her entire body. Every cell was alive and every nerve ending tingled as she submitted to their carnal urges, allowing Lucy to make her feel sexy and confident and loved.

  Chapter Thirty- Six

  The school summer holidays began at the end of June. Nicole had made a lot of plans, and the three children were eager to enjoy it all for a change. So when Lucy came back from a trip into town one evening, the last thing she expected to find was Storm lying on her bed, inconsolable because Lucy’s friends had died.

  Learning from Lucy that she had been famous once had piqued Storm’s interest. So, she had used her laptop and googled all about Lucy to find out everything about the band and the accident.

  “But it’s so unfair Mom,” Storm cried.

  “I know sweetie, but accidents happen and people we love are sometimes lost to us,” Nicole tried to explain. She looked up and found Lucy standing in the doorway watching the scene in front of her. Nicole beckoned her in. At first, she hesitated, unsure if her presence was going to help or hinder, but Nicole just held her hand out to her, and so she trusted her judgement. Storm noticed the change in the room and looked around. She reached out her arms for Lucy, and when the older woman pulled her close, she wrapped herself limpet-like around her.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Lucy soothed as the little girl clung to her. Nicole stood next to them, one hand rubbing gently back and forth against Lucy’s back. With Storm tucked into the crook of her neck, Lucy kept talking. “Do you want to ask me more questions?” She felt a small nod and figured this was going to be more comfortable sitting down in the living room.

  “So, what do you want to know?” Lucy asked, seating them both on the couch with Storm now sitting in her lap. Her big brown eyes, so much like her mother, were teary and wet as she blinked several times to clear them.

  “I don’t know, just…it makes you sad,” she answered. Her fingers stroked down the scarred cheek in front of her. Lucy choked up a little. The idea that this little girl could be so clued up on the world around her and the people in it astounded her.

  “Ya know, you’re right. It does make me sad, but d’ya know what else?” Storm shook her head. “Every day that I get to spend with you and your sisters and your mum,” she caught Nicole’s eye and smiled, “makes me a little bit happier.”

  “Really?” Eyes wide as saucers, her face began to light up a little.

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “So, ya see sometimes things happen in our lives that make us sad, but it always gets better.”

  “Even for me?”

  “Especially for you.” She tapped Storm’s nose playfully. “You’re happier now, right?” The little one nodded. “See, things change. People come and go, but it’s all okay. We end up where we’re supposed to be.”

  “And I’m supposed to be here, with you?”

  Lucy nodded. “Yep, right here with me and your Mum.”

  ~E&F~

  For the rest of the evening, Lucy had a shadow: Storm. Anywhere that Lucy went, Storm followed. If Lucy sat down to watch TV, Storm sat as close to her as she could possibly get and snuggled into her. Lucy didn’t complain; she wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in closer.

  When Lucy moved to the kitchen to cook dinner, it was Storm who helped peel potatoes and butter bread. Nicole tried to help, but they both insisted that she put her feet up.

  “We got this, Mom,” Storm said, smiling at Lucy. Lucy nodded her agreement.

  Nicole wasn’t going to argue with them. She loved watching her girls work together. She giggled to herself at the thought of Lucy as one of her girls, but she was. From her vantage point on the couch, she watched the two of them as they got all the vegetables ready, playfully pushing each other and joking around together as they worked. Storm was happy. There would be moments when Storm would find things difficult, question her place in the world, but time and love would one day win over, she was sure of it.

  “Mommy!!!” screeched Rain from her bedroom. Nicole got up as fast as she could. Lucy and Storm both stopped what they were doing and stared towards the bedroom.

  “Rain?” Nicole said urgently. “What is it?”

  “Mommy!!” she screamed again, running from the room until she crashed against her mother’s legs, wrapping her arms around them. “There’s a spider!”

  Nicole laughed hard. If this was the worst torment her young daughter had in the world, then she was happy too. “Okay, I’m coming…where is it?”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Nicole had finally been to the doctor’s and had her pregnancy confirmed a couple of weeks earlier. By mid-July, she was at the end of her first trimester, the safe zone. She and Lucy had discussed telling the girls and Rita, because they all needed to know. It was going to be several odd conversations, but conversations they needed to have; Nicole’s belly was now beginning to show signs that she was expecting.

  It was a quiet time of the day, and the girls traipsed along behind them. Holding Nicole’s hand, Lucy led them into the store. The girls quickly rushed past them both and into the back room where Rita kept some games and a TV for moments like now when they needed to be entertained.

  “Hey, guys,” Rita said cheerily.

  “Hi,” replied Nicole and Lucy simultaneously.

  “So, what’s the big news you needed to talk to me about?” she asked, glancing from one to the other. They were sweet together in Rita’s opinion, and she was so grateful for Nicole and the girls coming into Lucy’s life.

  Nicole looked at Lucy, who raised an eyebrow and grinned. “This is your show, Nicole,” Lucy said gently.

  “Yes.” Nicole nodded and looked around, a little nervous now that the spotlight was on her. “I just don’t really know where to start.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She had come a long way in these last few weeks and months, but her life before this was still difficult to talk about.

  They waited patiently for her to find her words. Rita passed them both some lemonade and Nicole began to tell her story: how she met a man and fell in love, a man that was every girl's dream, only he turned out to be a nightmare. She told Rita of the beatings and the emotional abuse; she talked about the times he would hurt her and how eventually he began to hurt Storm. She explained his gambling and how he had used all of her money to pay his debts and continue to bet, that when it went wrong she would become his punch bag. How she finally made the terrifying decision to leave him after he forced himself on her and now, when she was constantly watching over her shoulder, he had found them and hurt her again.

  Rita wiped away a tear. “Good God, Nicole! I…God, I don’t know what to say.” Rita’s expression was one of sympathy and admiration. That someone could go through all that she had and still come out smiling at the other end amazed her.

  “That’s not all,” Nicole said quietly, watching as Rita sat as still as she had ever seen her. “I’ve since discovered that I’m pregnant.”

  Rita’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Pregnant?” She was about to ask how it was possible, but then she realised and understood. “Oh Jesus, are you-?”

  “Happy? Yes.” She grinned as she looked towards her partner. “Lucy and I are going to raise this baby.” Lucy returned the grin as she considered once again the fact that she would be raising a family. She would be a parent; it was still so foreign to her. Sometimes she felt like it was someone else that Nicole was talking about, but then she would catch Nicole smiling at her and she would remember just how excited she was about the prospect of it.

  “Then I am happy for you both,” she said to the pair of them. Lucy’s grinning face was
seemingly stuck in place.

  “I am going to go to a lawyer and start divorce proceedings, but first I need to explain things to the girls and put Sherriff Jenkins in the picture in case he returns,” Nicole said worriedly. The thought of Paul returning really did fill her with dread; he was so unpredictable.

  “This community won’t allow him to come here and terrorise you, Nicole,” Rita said seriously, taking her in her arms. “You’re one of us now.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  They took the girls for pizza; not just any pizza, but Joey’s pizza at Joey’s Parlor, the best pizza this side of California and possibly the best pizza full stop if you had asked Storm.

  With a lot of chattering and laughter, their table was certainly the place to be. When Andrea, their waitress, placed bowls of ice cream on the table, Nicole took the opportunity to get the girls’ attention.

  “So, Lucy and I wanted to talk to you all about something important,” she said, looking around the table at her brood. Each pair of eyes set on her with smiling faces mostly covered in tomato sauce. They were all so beautiful and carefree, considering everything they had all been through.

  “You love Lucy? We know, Mom,” Storm said while rolling her eyes. Her spoon dug deep into the ice cream and came up loaded. She opened wide and shovelled it in.

  Lucy blushed and giggled, which earned her a look from Nicole that said, ‘please be serious.’ She regained her composure and spoke up. “And you’re all okay with that then?”

  Three heads nodded in unison along with mutters of “yes,” “yep,” and “hmm mmm” as ice cream continued to be shovelled into three eagerly waiting mouths.

  “Okay then. Over to you again.” Relaxing back into her seat, she smiled at Nicole.

  “Thanks, so as much as I am pleased that you are all happy with that issue, I actually have something else I need to tell you all.” She took a breath and looked at each of them one by one, all three keenly awaiting their mother’s announcement. “Alright so, here’s the thing. I…well we…Lucy and I…well….” She struggled to find the right words and looked to Lucy for help.

  “What your mum is trying to tell you is that we are having a baby,” Lucy said clearly and easily to them.

  “A baby?” Rain said loudly, causing Nicole to sweep her eyes around the restaurant hoping nobody heard that. Why she cared, she wasn’t sure.

  “A real baby that we can play with?” asked Summer, her eyes wide with excitement at the prospect of another plaything.

  Storm was yet to speak and that worried Nicole a little, but she persevered with the conversation. “Yes, a real baby.” She said smiling as Lucy took her hand in her own and squeezed.

  “What do you think, Storm?” Lucy asked. She too had noticed the lack of comment from the eldest so far. Storm continued to push her spoon into her ice cream and then watch it fall off and splat into the dish before doing it again. “Storm? This baby is an addition to our family, not a replacement,” Lucy said as she moved around the table to sit with her.

  “You will still have time to play with me and do singing and stuff?” she asked, a little teary.

  “Of course I will, sweetheart. This doesn’t change anything, it just means we have more love to share around,” Lucy explained. Storm took the opportunity to look her in the eye and check she was being true to her word.

  “You promise?”

  “I swear on my life that I will never, ever forget about you and we will always have our time to do the things we do together,” Lucy said solemnly. “We are a family, Storm. I love you, your mum loves you, and everything we do is because of you and your sisters.”

  “Where is the baby going to sleep?” Storm asked.

  “With me!” shouted Rain as she giggled. Nicole smiled at her daughter. Such a happy child in general, she lit up every room she entered with her smiles and giggles.

  “Well, that was the other thing we wanted to talk to you about. I am going to move my things into Lucy’s room and then Storm, you can have my room. And the baby will sleep in with Lucy and me for the first few months just like each of you did until he or she is big enough, and then we will have to reconsider things.” Lack of space in the cabin was going to be an issue at some point. “But….”

  “I get a room of my own?” Storm gasped, excitedly interjecting.

  “Yep, how does that sound?” Nicole asked her, knowing full well she was about to go supernova on the excitement scale.

  “My own room again! Can I paint it and have posters and friends over, can I have a TV? Can I?” She was cut off by a laughing Lucy.

  “Okay, sunbeam, let’s see how things go once we have moved it all around first, alright?”

  “Ok!!! But I am officially planning my new painting scheme.” She beamed her 100-watt smile, dazzling. She looked so much like her mother, it amazed Lucy. “I can’t wait.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  When they returned home, Storm made a beeline straight for her new bedroom and threw herself onto the bed. She jumped up and down on it with the biggest smile on her face. Meanwhile, the twins ran around the cabin from room to room with their dolls, talking to each other about diaper changes and feeding times. It was a whirlwind of noise and movement. Lucy took a moment to just stand in the centre of the chaos and absorb it all and revel in it.

  “Okay, your kids are officially nuts,” Lucy said, smiling across the room at Nicole. The brunette returned the smile instantly. She still had to pinch herself at times that this was now her life, that her kids could just run around screaming and singing and being kids without any of them worrying that violence would be the final result or hiding in their beds with their hands over their ears to block out Mommy’s scream. All of that was gone now. What they had now was beyond any dream she had ever had.

  “It’s taken this long for you to notice?” Nicole chuckled. Her hand automatically rubbed her tummy in soothing circles.

  Lucy crossed the room and took her other hand, spinning her in a half circle before her arms reached around and lay over Nicole’s own, her chin resting upon Nicole’s left shoulder. “You look so beautiful like this,” Lucy whispered in her ear, sending a light shiver down Nicole’s neck and arms.

  “You really mean that, don’t you?” she responded quietly, allowing their fingers to link together. She was finally beginning to believe the words that Lucy offered up so often.

  “Absolutely, I didn’t think it was possible for you to be any more beautiful, but I was wrong, being pregnant and having our baby is the sexiest thing I have ever seen or imagined.” She nuzzled into the crook of her neck.

  “I’ve never felt so loved, Lucy,” Nicole said, turning in her arms to catch Lucy smiling at her. Every time Lucy said our baby, it filled her with a warmth that she had barely felt before. “I love you, Lucy.”

  “I love you.” Lucy kissed her lips in response and was rewarded by a double ewww from the twins as they came running up to Nicole with a question.

  “When can we get the baby?” asked Summer. “We wanna play with the baby”. Lucy giggled at the scene. Every day these two managed to say or do something that gave Lucy pause to think or laugh.

  “Well, we have to wait a little while yet,” Nicole explained, internally wincing at the idea of having to have the birds and the bees conversation with them soon.

  “Can we go and pick one at the baby shop?” Rain inquired, which only increased Lucy’s giggle. “I want one that looks like me.”

  “Okay, come sit with Mama,” Nicole said, taking their tiny hands and leading them to the couch. She sat them either side of her as Lucy sat in the armchair opposite. There was no way she was missing this discussion. She pulled out her phone and put it on video.

  “What? This is going to be gold!” She grinned at Nicole’s reaction to the phone.

  Nicole stifled a smirk. “All right, now there isn’t a shop to go to, and we don’t get to pick the baby we want,” she explained gently to two very eager little girls.


  “Well, how do we get it?” Summer asked. “I really want it now.”

  “The baby is already here, kind of,” Nicole said and watched two pairs of eyes dart around the room looking. She smiled at them and their innocence. “The baby is in Mommy’s tummy.” Two pairs of eyes went wide with shock.

  “You ate the baby?” Rain asked incredulously. Lucy laughed out loud at that remark, it seriously was one of the sweetest conversations she had ever witnessed.

  Nicole smiled and tried desperately not to laugh, but she failed. “No sweetie, the baby was put in Mommy’s tummy by love, and he or she has to stay there until they are big enough to be born.”

  “When will it be born then?” This was Rain again. Summer hadn’t taken her eyes off of Nicole’s tummy the entire time.

  “Sometime in January.”

  “How long is Janwry?”

  “Well, first you go back to school, then we will have your birthday, then it will be Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Once we have New Year, we are almost there.”

  “New Year?” Summer exclaimed, finally looking up into her mother’s face. “We have to wait for a new year?”

  “I am afraid so. The baby needs that time to grow. At the moment they are the size of a peanut. So, they are very small.”

  “That’s tiny,” Summer noted in awe.

  Rain had gotten up from her seat and had walked around to stand in front of her mom. She tentatively reached out to touch her tummy and said, “Hello Baby.” Tears brimmed in Nicole’s eyes as she watched her daughter lean her head down to hear if the baby replied. “He isn’t talking yet,” Rain stated.

  Chapter Forty

  The following day Rita had the girls again, while Lucy took Nicole to see a lawyer. Agnes Danson was an expert when it came to divorce and arsehole ex-husbands. The short redhead took no prisoners when it came to dealing with abusive partners.